Neuschwanstein

Being that our vacation home was only a scenic twenty minute drive from the fabled „Disney“ castle, we were bound to visit.

So we booked the first English tour of the day which was at 9:50 and packed our raincoats as it had rained overnight and was predicted to rain again.

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We left the house just after 8:00 to make sure we were parked and up the mountain to the castle in time as was suggested by the website.

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We soon discovered that things were a lot less busy than normal given Coronazeit (the time of Corona).

We easily found parking next to the bus stop. The large bus was practically empty with only two other riders besides us.

When we got to the picturesque top, there were only a few other people waiting in line.

The German guide spent the waiting time showing us goats that were grazing on the opposite mountain across the wide ravine.

We had forgotten about the time and realized our tour was about to start.

While waiting inside the front gate for our group tour to begin, we found ourselves speaking ‚auf Deutsch‘ with a local who was there touring as well. She remarked at how quiet the castle was and explained that Bavarian children were still in school.

Our number was soon listed and we made our way down the long corridor into the waiting room when the friendly guide asked us to put away our cameras.

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In a small group of only five adults and five children total (we were told tour groups were normally up to 60 people), we made our way through King Ludwig‘s Dream palace, complete with a manmade cave with pointy stalactites and stalagmites.

We thought the boys would hate the tour (they had been dreading it and only agreed to go knowing they would be going to an amusement park later in the week), but they actually enjoyed it.

Perhaps the fact that it was only 25 minutes long and we stuck around for a short 15 minutes after that – including photos on the south balcony – made it more bearable. But the guide was really good and included the children.

All in all, Neuschwanstein was not my favorite Palace in Bavaria (I prefer the Residences in Würzburg and Munich as well as nearby Linderhof Palace), but I do feel lucky that we went and that it was a very quiet and easy morning.